this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2023

598 points (96.9% liked)

Canada

10322 readers

846 users here now

What's going on Canada?

Related Communities

🍁 Meta

🗺️ Provinces / Territories

🏙️ Cities / Local Communities

Sorted alphabetically by city name.

🏒 Sports

Hockey

Football (NFL): incomplete

Football (CFL): incomplete

Baseball

Toronto Blue Jays

Basketball

Toronto Raptors

Soccer

Main: /c/CanadaSoccer
Toronto FC

💻 Schools / Universities

Sorted by province, then by total full-time enrolment.

💵 Finance, Shopping, Sales

🗣️ Politics

General:
- Canada Politics
- FairVote Canada
Federal Parties (alphabetical):
- Animal Protection Party of Canada
- NDP
By Province (alphabetical):
- BC Greens

🍁 Social / Culture

Rules

Keep the original title when submitting an article. You can put your own commentary in the body of the post or in the comment section.

Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage: lemmy.ca

founded 4 years ago

MODERATORS

598

'This is egregious': Sisters shocked when Toronto landlord raises rent to $9,500 a month (toronto.ctvnews.ca)

submitted 2 years ago by girlfreddy@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca

292 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The landlord had told them he wanted to raise the rent to $3,500 and when they complained he decided to raise it to $9,500.

“We know that our building is not rent controlled and this was something we were always worried about happening and there is no way we can afford $9,500 per month," Yumna Farooq said.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] bitsplease@lemmy.ml 21 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Well yes, hence my last sentence - there will always be some people who have to rent (or just prefer it), and for those people, we could have public housing. Basically housing that's treated as a public infrastructure - run not for profit, but for public good. It's really not that hard to grasp - remove the landlords from the equation, and set the rent prices to exactly the cost of maintaining the properties.

If you remove the landlords leeching away extra value for investment profit, and instead just charged what it cost to make the housing available, it'd be cheaper by definition. Providing essential services at an affordable cost is literally the whole point of civil infrastructure

You don't need landlords to give people a place to rent, in the same way I don't need to pay someone to bring water to my house, or haul my sewage away, I use the public utilities in my area. And I'm not even talking about subsidizing the cost with tax dollars (though I think that's a good idea), you could give renters significant savings simply by not trying to make money off them

[+] Dkarma@lemmy.world -20 points 2 years ago (2 children)

No one wants to pay for any of that ever tho. You're talking about massive infrastructure costs which sure on average is cheaper but good luck getting any gov to agree to the cost and maintenance. Idk about Canada but public housing in the US sucks.

[–] bitsplease@lemmy.ml 15 points 2 years ago (1 children)

No one wants to pay for any of that ever tho

Pay for what? Again, I'm not talking about subsidized housing here, just at-cost rentals. The only people paying are the renters, they're just paying significantly less because they're not funding some random person/corporation's no-effort-required retirement plan.

Idk about Canada but public housing in the US sucks.

I'm in the US, and idk where you live but public housing in my area is both high quality and super affordable (granted I live in a very liberal state, where such things are given priority). The only issue is that there isn't enough of it, but that would be solved if we switched to public housing for rentals instead of landlords. If your area has "sucky" public housing, you should advocate for improvements in your community and vote for local policy makers who will prioritize it.

You seem to have this odd insistince that you can't possibly have rental properties without someone leeching profits off the top of the whole deal

[–] Dkarma@lemmy.world -2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Do you not realize that buildings cost money? That has to come way way way before a single dime of rent is collected. You act like rents collected from tenants equal the cost of the building immediately.

So again, where is the money coming from in advance to build the housing??? You only have one option. You keep pretending otherwise by creating a crazy unrealistic situation.

[–] bitsplease@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Of course buildings cost money, no one is suggesting that the tenants of these public housing buildings don't pay rent. Just that the rent is set at a rate that simply recoup costs instead of making the landlord (which in this case is the state) rich in the deal. And if states don't have the funds to invest in the property, I'm pretty sure the state governments would qualify for some pretty solid mortgages. And the costs of those mortgages can be added onto the rent - same as a landlord would do, only in this case, that would be the end of the rent padding.

I can't help but feel like you're deliberately misinterpreting me at this point. That, or you're just incapable of fathoming how human beings could possibly interact without one profiting off the other. The renters still pay rent, the mortgages on the property still get paid, the only difference is that the profit that would have gone to the landlord stays in the tenants pockets. That's it - that's literally the only difference. No free houses, no huge tax bills, just the removal of profit, and at-cost rents for folks who need them.

[–] Dkarma@lemmy.world -1 points 2 years ago

Then do it dude. No one is stopping you. I'm saying someone has to put up the cash.

You're saying...I'm not sure what exactly cuz no one is jumping to build public housing anywhere.

But if you think you can provide public housing at cost go for it. Someone has to pay UP FRONT and I'm not sure who u think that actually Is.